Retailers Respond To Shopping Habits Forged in Recession
The nation's retailers have begun to embrace the new cost-conscious consumer, developing products they can sell at lower prices without driving themselves out of business in the post-splurge era.
Starbucks dropped the price of a medium iced coffee last week to just under $2. Americ
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Added by Financial News on May 12, 2009 at 1:59am —
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Budget Shortfalls Prompt Mass Layoffs
Eleven weeks after Congress settled on a stimulus package that provided $135 billion to limit layoffs in state governments, many states are finding that the funds are not enough and are moving to lay off thousands of public employees.
The state of Washington settled on a budget two weeks ago that will mean 1,000 layoffs at public colleges and several times that many in elementary and high schools.
The governor of Massachusetts, who c
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Added by Financial News on May 12, 2009 at 1:54am —
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President Obama will present a set of proposals on Monday aimed at changing international tax policy, calling for the elimination of benefits for companies and wealthy individuals that harbor their cash in offshore accounts.
The president and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner will announce their plans during a late-morning appearance at the White House. The proposed overhaul in the tax code, which will be fully unveiled in the administration’s budget later this week,
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Added by Financial News on May 4, 2009 at 12:46pm —
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The EC's analysts warned that the 16 euro-zone economies will shrink 4 per cent this year, a contraction that is double the level it estimated only four months ago.
Unemployment is expected to soar to 11.5 per cent by the end of next year. The commission has forecast that 8.5 million jobs will be lost across the 16 euro-zone countries by the end of 2010 with Ireland and Spain expected to record the highest rates of unemployment. The spike in unemployment all but wipes out
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Added by Financial News on May 4, 2009 at 12:41pm —
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Obama Plan to Expand Federal Control of Lending Includes Creating Entitlement
President Obama's health-care goals may be garnering attention, but his higher-education proposals are no less ambitious.
If adopted, they could transform the financial aid landscape for millions of students while expanding federal authority to a degree that even Democrats concede is controversial.
At stake is a plan to expand the Pell Grant program, making it an entitlement akin to Medi
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Added by Financial News on May 4, 2009 at 11:53am —
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve will release ''stress tests'' results for the nation's biggest banks on Thursday, according to a government official.
Deliberations between banks and regulators about the tests' results pushed back the release date, which initially was expected to be earlier in the week.
In addition to an overall snapshot of the health of the 19 large banks being assessed, the Fed will provide detail about individual banks, according to the official,
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Added by Financial News on May 1, 2009 at 1:17pm —
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Despite a nearly 50% decline in net income, Newmont is maintaining its outlook this year for equity gold sales and costs per ounce.
Author: Dorothy Kosich
Posted: Friday , 01 May 2009
RENO, NV -
Newmont Mining President and CEO Richard O'Brien says the company has noted a decoupling of the traditional relationship between the weak U.S. dollar and gold prices.
However, O'Brien expects them to re-couple in the near future, bringing the inflation risks that will continue to prompt investors to…
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Added by Financial News on May 1, 2009 at 11:48am —
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Riots could threaten society as a result of the economic downturn, a Government minister has warned.
Unrest may spill on to the streets with cars and buildings set alight amid 'naked competition for jobs', unless urgent action is taken to tackle the effects of recession, Hazel Blears said.
The Communities Secretary explained how riots in Brixton and Birmingham in the Eighties and Nineties showed the power of recession to 'fracture community spirit'.
Already, several seni
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Added by Financial News on May 1, 2009 at 12:11am —
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WASHINGTON — President Obama forced Chrysler into federal bankruptcy protection on Thursday so it could pursue a lifesaving alliance with the Italian automaker Fiat, in yet another extraordinary intervention into private industry by the federal government.
Flanked by his automobile task force of cabinet secretaries and business advisers in the White House’s grand
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Added by Financial News on April 30, 2009 at 10:58pm —
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The applause thundered inside the Belk Theater on Wednesday for a fading star of American finance: Kenneth D. Lewis, the beleaguered head of Bank of America.
But all those huzzahs, offered up by loyal employees and steadfast believers, did not sway Mr. Lewis’s shareholders.
Mr. Lewis, who helped build Bank of America into the nation’s largest bank, was stripped of his chairman’s title —
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Added by Financial News on April 30, 2009 at 10:55pm —
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WASHINGTON (
Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday rejected an amendment that would have given bankruptcy judges the power to ease a homeowner's monthly payments and prevent foreclosure.
Supporters of what was known as the 'cramdown' provision argued that it would serve as a useful tool to help repair the housing market and keep millions of troubled borrowers in their homes.
Opponents
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Added by Financial News on April 30, 2009 at 10:49pm —
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DETROIT — Chrysler, the third-largest American auto company, will seek bankruptcy protection and enter an alliance with the Italian automaker Fiat, the White House announced Thursday.
The bankruptcy case, which officials envisioned as a swift, “surgical” process, was filed in United States Bankruptcy Court in New York. It marks the first time a major American car
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Added by Financial News on April 30, 2009 at 2:20pm —
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The executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said on Wednesday that a possible second round of service cuts and fare increases in the near future would take the transit system “beyond doomsday” and that extreme measures like stopping late-night subway service could not be ruled out.
Other officials of the authority added that while a late-night shutdown was not expected, a sharp reduction in such service was possible.
The dire predictions came as Go
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Added by Financial News on April 30, 2009 at 1:29pm —
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The U.S. economy plunged again in the first quarter, making this the worst recession in at least half a century.
Gross domestic product dropped at a 6.1 percent annual pace, weaker than forecast, after contracting at a 6.3 percent rate in the last three months of 2008, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. The report, which reflected a record slump in inventories and further declines in housing, came hours before Federal Reserve officials said the economy conti
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Added by Financial News on April 30, 2009 at 1:22pm —
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Did you have a parking permit but it slipped off the dashboard? Or maybe you stopped on a double yellow line so the kids could use the public loo?
Then prepare to pay for it. A record number of parking fines are being handed out
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Added by Financial News on April 30, 2009 at 12:39pm —
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David Cameron yesterday served notice that a Conservative government would impose swingeing spending cuts across government as he replaces Labour's "spendaholic" ways with a new era of thrift.
In his gloomiest speech since taking over as Tory leader in 2005, Cameron said that the dire state of the public finances meant that he would be judged as prime minister by his success in dealing with the debt crisis.
Speaking to the Conservative spring forum in Cheltenham, Cameron
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Added by Financial News on April 26, 2009 at 11:56pm —
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WASHINGTON — With the global economic downturn deepening and confidence in the financial system still elusive, the International Monetary Fund estimates that banks and other financial institutions face aggregate losses of $4.1 trillion in the value of their holdings as a result of the crisis.
In its global financial stability report, released Tuesday, the fund estimated that financial institutions would have to write down an estimated $2.7 trillion in loans and securities
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Added by Financial News on April 21, 2009 at 4:36pm —
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The U.S. Treasury's plan to purge toxic assets from banks' balance sheets is vulnerable to fraud and abuse and needs tough rules against conflict of interest, the government's bailout watchdog said on Tuesday.
Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), said in a report that subsidies for public-private investment partnerships (PPIP) to buy assets could expose taxpayers to higher losses without corresponding incre
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Added by Financial News on April 21, 2009 at 11:38am —
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Faced with plunging orders, merchants across this recession-wracked country are starting to do something that many of them have never done: cut retail prices.
Prices dipped everywhere, from restaurants and fashion retailers to pharmacies and supermarkets in March. Hoping to
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Added by Financial News on April 21, 2009 at 11:27am —
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Housing developments that have not gone ahead or been left unfinished because of the credit crunch could be rescued by a £1 billion intervention to be announced by Alistair Darling tomorrow.
In a move to help the construction industry and revive the market, the Chancellor will say in his Budget that the Treasury is ready to go into partnership with private companies to ensure that developments proceed. Whitehall will buy houses on some estates to turn them into social hous
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Added by Financial News on April 21, 2009 at 11:26am —
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